An anti-government extremist was executed in Alabama’s Holman prison for the brutal shooting death of Opelika, Alabama, police sergeant Roger Motley. 

George Sibley, Jr., 62, and his common-law wife, Lynda Lyon Block, shot Motley to death in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Opelika in 1993.  Both were active members of extreme right-wing tax protest and sovereign citizen movements in central Florida, which was a hotbed of such activity at the time.

The shooting occurred after a witness approached Motley and told him that she had seen Block’s 9-year-old son mouth the words “help me” to her from Sibley’s car.  Motley walked towards the car and asked Sibley for his driver’s license.  Sibley refused to provide one.  When Motley asked Sibley to step out of the car, Sibley refused again and shot at Motley.

Sibley then chased Motley across the parking lot, firing at the sergeant’s back. When Block, who had been at a pay phone, heard the shots, she ran towards Motley and shot at him several times, hitting him in the chest as he turned around to face her.

At the time of the shooting, Sibley and Block were fleeing from Orlando, Florida, to avoid sentencing on assault convictions in the stabbing of Block’s 79-year-old former husband.

Block was executed in 2002 for her role in the murder.